The Sparkman Club has turned its neighbors into family

Once a Sparkman neighbor, always a Sparkman neighbor.

The Sparkman Neighborhood Club offers its amenities — like the three new pools, tennis courts, pickleball courts and more — only to its members. You don’t have to live within the boundaries of Royal, Marsh and Merrell Lanes to become a member, however. Anyone who grew up in the neighborhood or moved out but left in good standing is also able to become a member, a testament to how the club has created a sense of family.

Sparkman Club Estates, which boasts the title of “The Best Neighborhood in Dallas,” was first established in 1958 by famed Disney Streets developers Robert Gump and William Gaynier. When Gump and Gaynier acquired the Sparkman Farm, one of their first moves before developing homes on the property was to donate a plot of land to the upcoming neighborhood.

For David Nichols, the neighborhood has always been a family affair. His father, Gordon, was a friend of Gaynier and one of the neighborhood’s original builders. Nichols first moved to subdivision in 1987 after purchasing his home from his sister. The Nichols family raised their two kids and lived in their home until they moved to Houston in 2009. Nichols’ time in Sparkman was defined by a camaraderie with his neighbors he has not seen anywhere else.

“I could walk blindfolded through a number of houses in Sparkman that I’ve been in so many times,” he says. “It’s just a different feeling. It’s more like a family than anything else.”

Like any family, Sparkman has its own traditions. Each year, the neighborhood puts on a Fourth of July parade, complete with a grand marshal riding in a convertible followed by floats decorated by most of the streets in the neighborhood.

The Sparkman Club pool has always been the center of the neighborhood. Every summer, it is home to the neighborhood’s swim team, the Sparkman Gators. The Gators compete against teams from the nearby neighborhoods of Club Royal, Park Forest and Glen Cove. Neighbor Lillian Sandel, who moved to Sparkman in 2003 with her children, describes being on the team as a rite of passage. Many of the members grow up to become volunteer coaches or lifeguards at the pool.

“You’ve got all these kids who are growing up together,” Sandel says. “They see each other at the pool, and then if they go to different schools, they kind of go their separate ways. Then they come back every year at the pool, and you just see these relationships, and it’s really cool to watch.”

The centrality of the pool to the neighborhood’s social scene has made it a widely-loved fixture. When neighbor Sharon Johnston started the club’s fundraising efforts to redo the pools, which had not been updated since the club’s opening, she found a neighborhood that wanted to pitch in. The club was able to raise over $1 million through a combination of door-knocking and fundraising events. One such event was a home and garden tour put on in December 2023. The tour was so popular, the neighborhood has another one planned for May 10 to raise funds to redo the parking lots.

Sparkman has not been immune to the wave of teardowns that has taken place in other Dallas neighborhoods, where a number of smaller homes being torn down and replaced with larger, more modern homes. Johnston, who has lived in Sparkman since 1965 when she was three years old and met her husband while lifeguarding at the Sparkman pool, says the familial feeling of the neighborhood has not gone away.

“People move here, and they think it’s just a house that they’re going to live in for a little while,” Johnston says. “They see how special the neighborhood is, and they just decide that this is where they’re going to stay.”